


Stories Told

by timeless_alice



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: "human" but you know, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Human Experimentation, Imprisonment, Other, Rescue Missions, Sedation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 12:30:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20389744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeless_alice/pseuds/timeless_alice
Summary: Ten years ago, the Aerialbots were captured. And with no sign at all of them, they were assumed dead by the Autobots. Until they showed up on the battlefield as something monstrous- an impossible combiner.Five vignettes about the capture, discovery, and rescue of the Aerialbots from the Decepticons.





	1. Powerglide

"Tell us what happened."

Powerglide had been summoned to what seemed to be one of the cleanest rooms in the Autobot stronghold in Rodion, second only to those reserved for medical uses, to sit under the scrutinizing gazes of Autobot High Command. He shifted under the gaze of his superiors, most of whom not even present save for holographic imagery, frame groaning as he tried to get comfortable with all the dents and aches that plagued his system. All that resulted was a flash of pain that danced up his circuits that made him flinch, when his injured wing pulled in a way it should not have.

There was no comment from them, though he did not miss the sympathetic turn in some expressions, and they waited for him to speak. His cooling fans whirred with a loud thrum before quieting once again, trying to sooth when a purr was best left for privacy. He looked at each person "present" in turn before he spoke.

"Well..."

***

The battle in Yuss, which had started as nothing more than a minor skirmish when a Decepticon patrol had been intercepted, had spilled over into its second day and it was clear the Autobots were losing.

The ground troops fought against what felt like never ending Decepticon forces that pushed back to lay claim to the last Autobot stronghold in the northern half of the planet's western continent. And as that went on, Powerglide tore through the air with a Decepticon warbird close on his tail. He cursed, not for the first time, the fact that all the other fliers stationed there had been called elsewhere.

The air was cool on his plating as he twisted through the smog that cast the long abandoned cityscape in a sickly pallor. Everything was muted around him, the suns light filtering through the heavy cloud of dust that choked out the life of all that remained there to turn the world a shade of brownish yellow. And over the roar of his turbines, pushing through resiliant air, he could hear the cacophony of noise that came with battle still going on below.

Because if nothing else, Autobots would fight to the last.

Under the adrenaline that came with evading a pursuer and the single minded mission of get him off his trail, there were pangs of guilt flashing through him. In an ideal situation, as battles rarely were, he was supposed to be an eye in the sky; surveying the battlefield to make sure 'Cons couldn't get the drop on an unsuspecting 'Bot.

A shot was fired behind him, a sharp crack that rose above all that other noise that caused his sensors to spike. His radars pinged a frantic rhythm in anticipation, and he angled one wing skyward to dodge the incoming blast. It drew too close, his movements too slow, glancing along the underside of his plating. It was close enough to make his paint bubble away and a fine layer of metal strip away, sending pain coursing along his circuits. But still he pressed on, leaning into a sharp turn to dive between two buildings. Taken too late, turn not tight enough, and a wing tip clipped against the crumbling remains of a passing skyscraper; it would have sent him into a spiral if he had not fought against the downward pull of gravity and over corrected in the other direction.

He swore regardless, shutting down the parts of him howling in agonized protest. He didn't have the fancy equipment of those who were in the soldier class, but he had learned how to compartmentalize. This could wait for later, and there would only be a later if he kept flying. The roar of an engine far more powerful than his own - forged to fight in ways that he was not - told him that the warbird had no difficulty following after him. And that was fine. He told himself though even as the sound drew closer; he just needed to reach the border of the city, evading every shot fired, to find the anti-aerials stationed there.

He tore through smoking air, bolstering his speed to put distance between them all while throwing out his sensors to scan for any obstacle that may hinder his flight path. It was something he had gotten good at, in the centuries that the two factions had been at war. The wind buffeted him from below with gun and mortar fire, sending great clouds of dust into his injury in ways that made his vision go white and sensors to momentarily fail. He tensed, pushing that feeling to the back of his mind. It was not the time, he had to focus on keeping himself steady over the endless battle.

He wondered, somewhere in the haze that clung to his thoughts, where Moonracer was. Overlooking the fight, presumably, on her own to keep an eye on the soldiers without her eye in the sky for aid. He felt a flash of guilt for that too; but if he was good at what he did, she was even better. She could manage without her partner until he was free of his pursuer.

No one on the ground pay him any mind, too preoccupied with the 'Con forces still pressing down on them. Nonetheless, the guns along his undercarriage shifted in preparation for offensive action; by this point in the war he was used to their weight, but every now and then his attention was drawn to them. At the very least, they did not hinder his speed, or else he would have never agreed to the modification.

He was fasted than the 'Con, courier class and thus sleeker in design, even with the guns. More agile too, something he was counting on that, as he tilted his wings up, changing his trajectory towards the sky. Gravity pushed ever downward against him, and he pulled into a tight spiral to keep his momentum going. With a quick glance at his sensors, ignoring the calculations of speed and the slow but steady loss of energon, he could see that the Con was struggling to keep up. Good, he thought, proverbial teeth gritting with effort.

After a moment of dizzying flight, he broke through the cover of clouds. Thick smog curled around him and crowded his systems, spilling into his seams and vents as if to choke him. Mind whirling with the sensations of grit rubbing against his joints and sticking in his gears, mixing with whatever energon was spilled, Powerglide's engine revved and cooling fans whirred to life to dispel as much of it as he could. A rush of air to create a bubble of clarity around himself before it settled back down and he found himself in clear blue skies.

"How you holding up?" Moonracer's voice broke through the din over their private comm link, her voice a light chirp despite the chaos around them. There was still a professional clip to them, signifying that she was deep in her sniper's mindset; tracking and taking down any 'Con in her line of sight. "Haven't seen you in a hot minute."

"Warbird on my ass," Powerglide growled in response, bristling his plating with care not to disturb his injury, which had settled into a dull throb at the edge of his senses. "I hope you guys are doing fine without me."

He could almost picture her slight, casual shrug in reply during the pause in communications. He pushed forward, kicking into a high gear of speed instead of a gradual pick up of speed. He considered, for a moment, diving just below the cloud surface for an extra degree of projection, but thought against it. If he had to, he would, but there was no use clogging up his vents for no reason.

"I think we've got things covered here," she said.

He didn't miss the slight edge of concern to her voice, but he made no reply; the both knew that the battle was a losing prospect almost from Go. Even if it had just been a small patrol at the start, the north was controlled by Decepticons, and they were just a small unit keeping an eye on munitions until reinforcements could be sent. The area lacked resources, but it was the last foothold of the Autobot resistance in the region. The knowledge hung between them in silence for thick it pulled down on his Spark: the more ground they lost, the more they were chased underground. 

The thoughts were pushed out of his head, and he continued on in a northeasterly trajectory. Towards the outer borders of Yuss and into the wilds beyond. Towards the coast that overlooked the ocean that led to the small island continent that housed Kaon and Tarn, and what docks remained there in a small pocket of what had once been civilization.

A glance at his radars told him the Decepticon was closing in behind him, keeping some distance as the clouds slowed his pace but flying at an angle to keep close behind. Powerglide didn't spare him a second thought as he powered on towards the Autobots at the city limits, where they could take down the Decepticon with ease. There was another shot fired into the air behind him, missing him by a wide margin - still a little too close for comfort, and he banked left.

His joints whined at each minute movement, unused to flying at such high altitutdes with the additional debris filtering through his systems. There was a flash of fear of engine stalling, but he couldn't make any changes just yet. The Con behind him would break cover soon, and he had been design for this kind of flight. Powerglide kept an eye on his whereabouts, waiting for the right moment.

The seconds, the Spark pulses that passed by, felt like an agonized eternity. But soon the Decepticon was right under him, close enough to be in open any moment. And with that signal, Powerglide slowed his engines and allowed himself to fall.

He twisted in the air, chest lurching with the sudden anxiety of a free fall even though he was total control the whole time. An engine stall at this point would be deadly, just another thing to the list of things that could currently kill him but one that was certainly more primal. It was someting that existed in every flier's mind, he thought, an ever present worry that their wings would fail to save them. Or that their timing would just be a little off, and their frame would crumple like some fragile bit of aluminum, steel and Spark made useless agianst the weight of gravity. But he shoved those away, tucking each into a little compartment with the pain of his wing as his instincts began to take over.

Flight was his Spark's calling, and it was as natural to him as anything else. Nose turned towards the ground, his engine kicked back to life with a thrum that tore apart the sound of falling. A well trained mind took in the flow of wind over his frame as he flew and adjusted his wing flaps, catching and directing flow of air to better his descent. He couldn't even hear the Con, though he must have course corrected to follow behind. Soon his own engine's roar was lost in the moment, allowing his focus to be directed solely on his hurtle towards the street below.

There was no true bottom layer of cloud to break through, but he did fly into the relative clear of the ground layer just above the fray. Great gusts of air sent it all scattering, clearing the sky for a few precious seconds before destruction and ruin reclaimed its stake on the land. Some dirt and debris clung to his rudders, trailing behind him like some kind of flag that was his alone to bear. 

The world was once again alive with noise- the thrum of his engine and that of the Decepticon warbird, frantic battle below. Buildings rose to meet him, and he angled to pass through them, moving at greater and greater velocities as if no resistance existed at all. It was all instinct, flight protocols so wired into his systems that they didn't require any thought at all as he weaved through what remained of the high rises at the very edge of the city proper. There were few and far between as they drew closer to the wilds, making navigation easy even for the bulkiest of fliers.

There was another shot. In the focus of flight he had neglected to notice that the Con had closed the distance between them, and maybe he would have noticed this if he had been trained as a soldier. That one missed, but it was followed by another, and another. Rapid fire shots that refused to be ignored until one hit its mark.

It scored across his wing to tear the plating there across its whole length, exposing the delicate workings underneath. The edges of the wound burned and coiled as metal melted away under the searing heat, stripping away the paint. Agony blinded Powerglide for a moment, and his flight faltered for just a moment. He couldn't stop he reminded himself, forcing his vision and sensors to focus on anything else. The ground was too close for this.

At the last possible moment, with the cracked pavement rushing up to meet him littered with stone and glass and other twisted metals, Powerglide flared his flaps and ailerons and gave a sharp pull upwards to give his fall a sharp and sudden stop. His plating groaned and his internals complained, an ache setting into him as if he had been punched in the chest - and in a sense he had, the deceleration crashing against him even with him continuing with a forward motion. His wing continued to sear, screaming with the action of leveling out and catching the wind. It was a miracle he was able to pull off the stunt at all. But he had to ignore all of it, the pain and wonder and want to catalog any injuries it all caused in order to fly on. The battle was not yet over.

The closer they drew to the ocean and the further away from the heart of the battle, the air grew clearer. War torn dust and dirt gave away to salt that sat heavily in the atmosphere. And with that the towers that reached towards the sky with hungry fingers, the buildings grew fewer and farther between. Soon there would be nothing but wilds, until he hit a small mountain range that would lead to a small workers suburb.

That meant no cover, nothing at all between him and his pursuer. He gave an involuntary shudder, from nose to tail, and his thrusters worked ever harder to put distance between him and the 'Con. Sensory information, no longer having to parse through the obstacles present within the city, informed him that the enemy was dropping further and further behind. There was a nagging sensation at the back of his mind telling him that this was odd, but he ignored it. Reminded himself that despite his injured wing he was courier class, and could outlast and war bird any day.

"You okay, Glider?" Moonracer's voice over their comm drew him out of his thoughts. "We lost visual on ya."

"S'all good on my end," he replied, wincing at the pain that strained his voice. "Got glanced with a lucky shot, but as if that can stop me."

There was a small pause, before she said, "Stay safe out there." There was barely concealed concern in her voice, under all the layers of professionalism. There was a ringing shot of fire from her end, crackling over the comm with a loud reverberation of feedback that made him cringe. The line went silent, Moonracer returning to her fight so he could return to his.

The anti-aerial weaponry fell into sight, if not the soldiers themselves, their position nestled between some cliff faces that hung around Yuss' border before the rock plains gave way to beaches and dockyards. Powerglide angled downward, slowing his trajectory so he could land. He transformed, the joints in his wing squealing in protest as he rearranged into his upright position. Feet touched ground and he shifted his plating, his wince turning into a small stumble before he was able to right himself.

One soldier, a grounder with battlescarred plating, stepped out from behind his stone hiding place while Powerglide was stretching his arms and gingerly twitching his wings to get stock of all his current aches. He stilled as the 'bot approached, and he looked towards where he had been stationed. Others must have been there, tucked away in the natural alcoves that would leave them hidden until the last possible moments.

"Powerglide," the soldier said. Powerglide racked his mind for his name, picking through all the names of all the soldiers he had come to know. "Didn't expect to see you out here."

"Yeah, well." Giving up on looking for a name, Powerglide turned on his heel to face the direction of the city proper. "I had a Con on my tail and thought I could use an assist."

No sign of any aerial enemies. Not even on his sensors, when he checked. Just himself, the soldiers there, and a small blip moving towards the edge of his range before it blipped out of existence. He frowned under his face plate, the plating along his shoulders bristling as his eyes narrowed. 

"We don't see anyone anymore," the soldier said from behind him, voice thoughtful. Powerglide turned on his heel to face him. "Saw you coming with someone behind you, but we lost visual." He offered a shrug, the wheel kibble on his shoulders spinning idly with the motion, and Powerglide's frown deepened.

"I don't either," Powerglide said. "Don't you think that's weird?"

He half expected a quip about the anti-aerials being fiercer than any Decepticon bird, that he maybe turned tail when he realized where Powerglide was going. But the soldier just continued to look thoughtful, his head tilted to the side. Out of the corner of his eye, Powerglide could see the others who had been stationed there peaking out from behind the rocks, a few of them even stepping into the light to better observe their conversation. 

"Course I think it's weird," he said after his moment of deliberation. No cocky tone, no knowing smile. Just a small contemplative look, with a faint narrowing of the eyes and light frown. "'Cons don't just turn tail like that." His voice dropped low, and he leaned forward with an upward inclination of his head to account for the vast height difference between him and Powerglide. Powerglide bent to accommodate him.

"You know what else is really damn weird?" the soldier said. He didn't wait for Powerglide's reply, which took the form of a quizzical flick of his good wing, before he continued, "We've recorded seismic activity out here in the past two hours or so."

Powerglide jolted back, both wings shooting upright in surprise and in such a way that drew a sharp shout of pain from him as damaged wiring pulled taut. "But we aren't anywhere near a fault line?" he said, voice high and strained with the lingering aftereffects of moving damaged systems, coupling with his surprise.

"Exactly," the soldier replied. "We think that there might be..." he paused, looking over his shoulder towards the distant shoreline that would lead out to Kaon and Tarn and the heart of the Decepticon army, the first territories taken in the war. "A combiner. We're so close to them, and if we lose Yuss..." He trailed off, leaving what Powerglide already knew - as all Autobots did - the truth of the matter.

Powerglide folded his arms, drumming a finger against the seam at his elbow. "Isn't Devestator out near Iacon?" he asked after a moment. Neither side sent out combiners all that frequently, with everyone considering the tactic a last ditch effort to win a battle. The Constructicons' uses were better directed towards the Autobot's own capitol.

"He could be anywhere," the soldier said, with the slightest of shrugs. "We haven't gotten word on his whereabouts in months."

Powerglide hummed, eyes casting out towards the horizon. Then he swept his gaze around the area, to all the nooks and crannies Decepticons could hide in in preparation for an ambush. A combiner. A shudder passed through him, and he yelped as something in the damaged workings pinched together with the movement; damn this injury, he hoped he could still fly back with it.

The frankly involuntary sound caught the soldier's attention, and he eyed Powerglide's injury with a sympathetic look.

"That looks pretty nasty," he said. "You all right?"

"I'll be fine," Powerglide grumbled, looking at his wing as it twitched back into a more comfortable position, each little adjustment sending a new jolt of pain through him. It was a short injury, one that just skimmed across the lowest point of his wings curve. But it was deep, with the metal shredded and wires beneath exposed. He had known this, but the sight of it still sent a shudder through his plating.

But he would be fine, and would manage until the battle was over one way or another.

He snapped away from it, unable to take in the appearance of the wound any longer for fear that he would psyche himself out. It was then the ground trembled, a great rumbling that rolled through the ground and vibrated up his arms; so keep it felt like the world was trying to shake him apart from his endoskeleton. He activated thrusters and all balancing subroutines at his disposal to keep from toppling over, throwing his hands out to help steady the wavering soldier.

It passed, after just a moment. Powerglide eased into his flight radars, throwing out his sensors as far as he was able with new data streaming into his vision to join the normal visuals and statistics. He frowned, filing through them, unsure what to look for.

"See?" the soldier said, breathless, stumbling away from Powerglide's hand to stand on his own power. "That's exactly what's been happening."

Powerglide hummed in response, turning on his heel as if physically looking in any given direction would help his sensors get a better read on the surrounding area. Earthquakes were something outside the realm of his knowledge, the curving paths of the air undisturbed by the riots of the planet below and the numbers scrolling through his vision made little sense to him. If only he had listened to those in his class who had been confined to the ground, he thought with a roll of his eyes.

"We haven't joined the main fight because of this," the soldier went on. Powerglide could see him out of his periphery, though he did his best to focus on what was in front of him and try to detangle the mess of data before him.There was a frantic flap of hands from the soldier, as if dispelling his own cloud of numbers and spiking lines. "There could be something out there."

"I bet money there is," Powerglide said, pushing away seismograph data to draw up the blipping radar that nestled in the corner of his hub. He noted himself, the soldier beside him, and counted out the five anti-aerials who still remained where they were, apart from the discussion. Nothing else. After a beat of looking, he pushed at the edges of what he could sense, quieting parts of his brain as he redirected power to expand.

And there it was, just at the corner of what he could manage. The edge of a blinking dot of a newcomer.

"There's something coming," he said. "I don't know if your radars are strong enough, but--"

Another tremor cut him off, sending him staggering and falling backwards onto the ground, landing hard on his rear in a way that jolted through his spine and shuddered along already sore joints. He didn't even have time to redirect the flow of energy from sensory input to physical capabilities.

"Prima and Solus!" He hopped to his feet as soon as his thoughts gathered back together, aches and pains forgotten in the light of this new probably threat.. "There's something big around the corner!" He took off at a run, body taking over to compensate for the still shaking ground; he was not as graceful on land as he was in the air, but he had his tricks to get around it. He gained momentum, then launched to the air and transformed, wings catching the sky and carrying him forward towards that blinking dot on the radar. 

The wind churned oddly around him, as he drew closer, even if there were no visuals to confirm any suspicious. His Spark twisted in his chest, some feeling of trepidation roiling along his circuitry, but he pushed on. Instinct activated steadying mechanisms, keeping his path true and even; it was only minor ripples in the air, not even as severe as those from the battle, but the knowledge it was there edged at the corners of his mind.

And then he saw it. A form stomping along the shoreline, emerging from some of pilings of stone and moving towards the small unit of anti-aerials. Massive, each movement slow and deliberate. He stopped, hovering in air to watch it move as dread pulsed through his limbs, settling in to chill his Spark. Minutes between each footfall, though the gap was closing the more it moved, as if joints were tense and had to be loosened.

He dropped low to edge closer, hoping to fall under the thing's field of vision. He took in what he could see in the silhouette as it drew ever more into the open. Sensors trailed along limbs, taking in their irregular shapes, the ones that were rather emblematic of combiners. Aberrations adorning the limbs that could only be kibble of various individuals and all their various shapes that joined to form one whole. As it - he, they - approached, Powerglide noticed the shape of flight kibble; sharp edges of wings that jutted out at odd angles from arms and legs and the back.

But there was something else, a familiarity to those shapes. And as that settled into him, like a vice that crawled through his throat to choke out every one of his systems, he stopped. Almost stalled, engine stuttering for one horrifying moment. The soldier called out to him over comm, asking if everything was all right.

And Powerglide wasn't sure he wanted to answer as the truth hit him like a bombshell.

Before him, finally clear, was the Aerialbots. Ten years missing, ten years presumed dead. There they were, bodies twisted into something monstrous; he could see the blue of their energon bubbling from torn joints forced to bend in unnatural ways to drip along limbs already stained with old trails that no one had bothered to clean away.

"Prima and Solus," he managed at last, thrusters kicking in to push him away from the thing that had no right to be there, no right to exist. He was so sure that they - he? - would have noticed him by now.

"What?" It was Moonracer who replied. He hadn't even realized he had switched over to their comm. Though her voice held it's usual tease, there was an underlay of concern that was impossible to miss. He was almost thankful for it. "What are we Prima and Solus'ing about?"

His voice failed him, as great red eyes that swept the horizon swung low to finally land upon him. He tried to back away, press against the cliff face for some semblance of protection before he managed to gather his wits and turn tail, flying onward back towards the anti-aerials and the city beyond.

"Autobot," a voice called after him. And it was all of them, all at once. Five voices, distinct that they stumbled over one another in a discordant song that drilled into Powerglide's ears. "We destroy...Autobot."

He could pick out their each individual voices, though Silverbolt's rang with the most clarity in the nightmare chorus. Powerglide's mind reeled with the noise of it, and he knew a chase had begun. He did not dare throw his sensors behind him, did not dare to pay them any mind or even look over his shoulder for fear that even a moment's hesitation could cost him. And somewhere behind him, twisted limbs that must have been tearing and grinding at the slightest motion slowing him down, the combiner roared. It sounded like agony, five voices howling something so primal and Spark deep that it rattled Powerglide to his foundations.

"The hell was _that_?" the soldier called over the comm as Powerglide barreled ever on in their direction.

Powerglide transformed mid-air, once the anti-aerials were back in view. He hit the ground at a roll, unceremoniously clambering back to his feet. His cooling fans roared with his panic, eyes still on the horizon where the Aerialbots were making their approach. They were gaining speed, the ground trembling at an almost nonstop rate.

"We have to retreat," Powerglide said.

The soldier gave him an incredulous look, mouth slightly agape at his words. "But that would mean we'd lose Yuss!"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Moonracer's own voice rattled in his head, too calm for his fraying nerves.

He waved his hands, engine revving in a short, sharp growl. "I know," he snapped. His wings quivered, taut with stress of the gravity of the whole situation. "I know we're gonna lose Yuss but that shaking? It's definitely a combiner." He grabbed the soldier by his shoulders, fingers clutching tight enough to hurt the joints. The soldier just stared at him with wide eyes, with the others creeping out from their hiding spot to stare at Powerglide themselves.

"And that combiner's the fucking Aerialbots," he said, "coming straight this way."

It was clear, he thought. That horrible sense of clarity coming with a stillness that seemed to slow time down, so that it may ruminate in every corner of the whirling mind. The final position on the continent's northern tip that was still in Autobot possession. A combiner sent in during a push against Decepticon forces, made up of their own men that the Autobots would never dream of harming. That's why the Decepticon warbird had given up the chase as he approached the shore.

They never had a chance.

"They're dead," Moonracer said in a hushed whisper. There was a crash on her end of the line, and a bang of return fire. When she next spoke her voice was even, more clear, as if that had snapped her out of whatever thought she'd been lost in. "You don't think that the Cons-"

Powerglide didn't let the question finish, too wrapped up in his own feelings to linger on her theories. It seemed to him that she was going in the same direction he was, wondering how something like this would ever come to be. It didn't matter, just then. "Apparently!" He let go of the soldier, and turned to the other anti-aerials, waving an arm in the direction of the city. "Call for a retreat and get back to the city. Go, now!"

The combiner roared again, and the soldiers present did not take any extra persuasion to evacuate. Moonracer cut off from the call, and he hoped she was directing soldiers to extraction points to finalize their loss and minimize casualties. The anti-aerial leader lingered for a moment longer with Powerglide, watching as the Aerialbots came into view.

"Prima and Solus."

And as Decepticons fled from Yuss to allow their new combiner a clear path of destruction, the Autobots turned tail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [wonderful art for this chapter created by jarofloosescrews!](https://jarofloosescrews.tumblr.com/post/187261469098/for-the-tfbigbang-i-was-also-lucky-enough-to-be)


	2. Prowl

"And you can verify the events in Powerglide's report," Optimus Prime said for what Prowl felt to be the hundredth time, though they hadn't spoken to more than a handful of witnesses. It was the repetition, of interviewing those who had made it out of Yuss in light of the combiner attack.

New combiner. Prowl dwelled on it for a single moment before filing it away in his mind for later deliberation.

Moonracer, with her back straight and her chin raised with the familiar poise of a trained soldier, looked at each figure around her in turn. Prowl did not miss the lingering of her gaze on those who were mere holograms, as if she was wondering where they were stationed. Her eyes eventually fell to him, and he fought to meet her evenly despite it sending prickles along the underside of his plating, jumping across his circuitry.

"Yes," she said, turning attention back to Optimus. "And as you might know we've been trying to gather what recordings we have of the attack, but so far most has been too battle damaged for much use. Even the footage from after the Decepticons retreated, the Aerialbots...Combiners aren't exactly careful."

A shoulder lifted in a shrug that caused her plating to bristle, and resulted in a hand being pressed to a still heeling wound on her chest. Prowl watched her, mouth pulling into a frown without a word being uttered. He leaned forward, just enough to rest his elbows on the tabletop. Fingers interlocked, and he pressed the knuckles of his thumbs to his lips as he listened, as he thought. 

He had been collecting all he could on the attack, from the official reports to the rumors already spreading like ripples through their army despite their best efforts. He wanted to be in control of this, before things grew out of hand and he was forced to act too swiftly in ways that could prove disastrous. Still, people talked, especially after such a cataclysmic shock.

It was, he thought with the faintest flicking of a door wing, a small miracle. A small victory, at any measure. That the identities of the pseudo-gestalt team were being kept under wraps. How long that would last, he wasn't sure. It wasn't worth giving much thought to, so he tucked that into the back of his mind as well.

"We have people looking into reconstruction," Perceptor said, his voice tinged with an emotion Prowl could not place, even as he ran it against his databanks. His kibble, at any rate, was kept in a professional posture that bore more familiarity. He added, mostly for the benefit for those in the room who feared information getting out, "I have my discreetest people working on it, rest assured."

This was not such a situation that could be kept from everyone's knowledge for long. Plans would have to be made at some point, as soon as it was possible. Either a rescue or.... He hated the very idea, tucking it as far from his flow of thoughts as possible even as it stubbornly lingered at the edges. But it would either be a rescue or, worst case scenario, a mercy killing to five soldiers. That was the dichotomy when so little was known about what had been done and to what extent.

For the past few days, as those rescued recovered enough to give testimony and various facts settled in to chill already frozen Sparks, Prowl planned. As he always did, with the nature that convinced others around him that he was nothing more than a clever Drone, he divided up mental capital. Figured out what was what, figuring which spies to send where and for what information they were to look for. Underneath the surface there was a distinct hint of uncertainty, as the Aerialbots whereabouts had been a mystery to them for a decade. But those under his command where talented, and he assured himself that with a better sense of direction they could their jobs, and do them well.

"Thank you, Moonracer," Optimus was saying. Prowl did not look to him, but knew him well enough to detect the hint of frustrated sadness in his voice, even as he tried to hide it away. A feeling that spread throughout the brass of High Command, it seemed. "What your team has learned is...invaluable."

Prowl wasn't sure if he imagined the hesitation in Optimus Prime's voice or not.

"You're welcome, sir," she said, still with that same soldier's poise. Her kibble shifted to something Prowl thought to be in the realm of sadness, though he could not be sure of the exact degree of it. She added, then, in a soft voice, "I hope we can save them."

"We all do." Prowl's eyes were drawn to Ironhide, and he didn't need to overthink to see that he was holding back his anger. Not for the first time, Prowl thought that his temper made him a poor fit for Command. But Prowl kenw that Optimus valued his opinion, so Prowl had little reason to question the decision outright.

There was a note to his voice, clear as day even to Prowl, that was a promise: to kill whoever had done this, if only they could find the culprit. And for all he tried not to lower himself to Ironhide's level, he was loathe to disagree.

"Indeed," Optimus said with his usual solemnity, masking any other emotion that the others may read. "We hope to bring them home, and do what we can to help them."

He bowed his head just slightly, averting his gaze from Moonracer for a moment before he looked around the rest of his council. Prowl's back straightened and his doors quirked upward to a more professional posture as soon as Optimus' gaze swept over him. He offered a small nod, just as everyone else did, all in agreement about the course of action. Because what else could they do.

Moonracer was dismissed with more words of gratitude, with an additional reminder - warning, coming from him - from Ratchet to rest and recover. For her part she stood and gave a wincing salute, plating shifting around patchwork jobs and causing light to catch off great swaths of still to be painted injuries. She turned on her heel and left the room; left High Command to discuss their plans.

There was a lot to discuss, Prowl knew. Of all kinds of matters that turned and twisted in on themselves like a snake. Of things that none of them truly knew, that no one truly knew.

Prowl, who kept his attention forward to the door that had swallowed Moonracer as she left, was aware of gazes on him. It made him twitch, doors flicking in irritation. He hated people staring at him, but he made no comment as he turned to face his fellows. There was a question on their minds, a request that he knew with full clarity without anyone having to utter a word.

"Prowl," Optimus started in a slow, measured way. "We know you have connections to our combiner team..." Combiner team, singular. To go against the Decepticon's current count of two.

Prowl spread his hands across the table, heaving a low sigh. But before he could speak, he noticed the holographic form of Perceptor hold up a hand and lean forward.

"Maybe we shouldn't put him on the spot like this," he said with a frown. Prowl tilted his head to the side, watching him as he went on, "A valuable resource, to be sure, but perhaps one of us could contact them instead...?"

The lead scientist for the faction had more kindness in his Spark than was perhaps wise. He was willing to hold out a hand to a cast out Decepticon, and who among them would have the same good will? It made him soft, and Prowl knew without even looking that some others present would disagree with his hesitation.

"Perceptor," Prowl said, voice in the quiet monotonous quality it took when he tried to value speech over emotional expression. It was always one or the other with him, for as long as he had been in existence. "I'll speak to Hot Spot." To avoid Perceptor's eyes he focused on the downward pull of his mouth, a look Prowl assumed was concern. Of course there were personal reasons for the call, ones that the others would no doubt know, but the likelihood that any would begrudge him for it was low.

It just might be difficult speaking to his boyfriend about what was - for lack of a better term - a crime against nature, so he did not begrudge Perceptor for his concern.

Prowl looked Optimus in the eye, forcing himself to hold steady even as the effort made his circuits jolt in his discomfort. "I'm not sure how much he will be able to give us that we don't already know," he said. "I can't promise much."

"Any bit of intel that could help the Aerialbots will be vital, Prowl," Optimus said. There was a silent, tacked on 'you know this' that Prowl did not acknowledge, as faint prickles of annoyance ran up his arms; he knew that Prime did not intend to be condescending, but there were times that he came off that ways. Prowl found it best to just ignore it, especially as some small part of him wondered if he just imagined it.

"Indeed," he said, keeping formal. He kept his hands planted on the table as he drew to his feet with slow deliberation. "I just hope Hot Spot isn't too busy." He departed from the meeting with very little in the way of farewells, leaving the others to discuss matters amongst themselves that did not involve him or his men while he was away.

As a public servant prior to the war, Prowl had known Hot Spot since long before the first battles broke out. There were few bots, if any, that came as close to Prowl as Hot Spot in terms of personal relations. And despite everything, and despite being tainted by the weight of the situation, Prowl felt a slight trill in the Spark at being able to speak to him again, after so long.

An even quieter corner of his mind, tucked away the sensabilities and numbers that rolled through his thoughts at any given moment, was the hope that Hot Spot would be physically part of the rescue. It sent a flash of guilt through him, for prioritizing his interpersonal relationships over the war effort; he tucked it away ever deeper in his head and focused instead on the numbers and figures he knew.

The walk towards his room on base was oddly sparse of soldiers who usually gossiped in the halls as they flitted from assignment to assignment. And without their chatter overriding his senses with their conflicting roars of noise, Prowl was able to still his nerves from the meeting. Emotions were forced into check, edges smoothed out into more manageable forms so that his voice might not be so monotonous on the call. 

For Prowl, for as long as he could remember, words came to him with great difficulty on most occasions. They formed in his processor but stumbled on the way to his mouth, almost snapping somewhere along the neural pathways unless he focused on them. It became harder when his emotions decided to flare in extreme ways, shutting down the logical parts of his brain that made spoken word possible and left him with two options: get his emotions under control and appear monotonous, or let his emotions take control and render his verbally mute. Not many Cybertronians understood signed Neocybex, so the former tended to be his preferred method of action.

It did, of course, come with the unfortunate side effect of making those around him assume he was as cold and calculating as his reports. There was little to be done about that, and he had no intention of holding someone's hand regarding the inner workings of his mind.

Without anyone to stop him for information, as prying ears were wont to do after a meeting with the council, he made short time of reaching his room and sliding inside. He took one look around his room, immaculate despite the circumstances, before sitting before his console and switching it on. Numbers and time zones filtered through his mind, deciphering the time differences between where he was and the Protectobot's current station. At the very least, he knew that the call would not be coming in the middle of the night; not that it was one that should wait for a more godly hour.

He sighed, vents stuttering with emotion, and he dragged his feelings back to pack away in his chest. Fingers tapped on keys with a familiar ease, like he was a desk jockey writing out a long awaited report. In turn his doorwings fluttered a few times, a little more freely than he would have allowed had he been in the company and thus prying eyes of others.

He opened the call.

The link was quiet for a long stretch of time, only alive with the knowledge that the call had gone through and not given Prowl an immediate error message that would illuminate the screen. Disappointment growing frustration, however tucked away in the far reaches of his mind, nagged at him with tenacious claws.

And then, there was a response. The screen flicked on, and Prowl was not greeted with Hot Spot. It was Groove, whose blue eyes were flickering in the ways they do when one is just drawing out of sleep. Behind him, Prowl could see the quarters Hot Spot kept for an office, an organized chaos that made his plating itch. He forced himself to look back to Groove, instead of try to take in everything going on behind him.

Groove had a nonchalant posture, leaning back in the desk chair before the monitor with one arm slung over its back. There was a crooked smile cutting across his face, bearing a single sharp fang.

"Prowler!" he chirped, his Polyhexian accent as thick as ever. "Three guess as to why you're calling." He held up three fingers, holding that for a beat before lowering two until it was just his index finger. "And no prizes for the first two."

"Groove." Prowl's voice was clipped, without a hint of emotion. This drew an immediate frown from Groove, though he didn't make a comment on the monotone. It was something he, like the other Protectobots, were more than used to. "Is Hot Spot around?" No point in beating around the bush.

Groove said nothing, only rubbed at his chin as his eyes narrowed behind his visor; Prowl could tell, from the shifting of light behind the blue glass. A perk of knowing the group since before the war, he thought dimly.

"He's with First Aid right now," he said, suddenly serious. "I can go get him." There was a pause, and Prowl could tell he wanted to ask more. Could tell that without having to score through file upon file of behavior. It was just the natural thing to expect.

His whole demeanor shifted, his back straightening from the relaxed lounge. His frown took a severe downward turn instead of he contemplative expression that Prowl had assumed. It was rare, he thought, to see Groove so serious. Even in the years they had come to known each other, in those years building up to the war, Prowl had taken Groove to be proud of his casual demeanor, to balance out the rest of the group. It had, at times, grated on Prowl's nerves. But there was something to be said for someone who tried not get swept into hysteria.

"Is this about...?" Groove trailed off with a minute tilt of his head, the meaning of which Prowl was unsure of. He left the words unsaid, and they dug into Prowl nonetheless. Word really had spread, if those as far away as the Protectobots had heard the rumors.

Though he supposed it was ineviable, and he had to just accept that fact.

"The combiner?" A stiff nod. "Yes."

A shudder passed through Groove, ruffling the fine plating common to a small motorcycle alt, and Prowl didn't need to think too long on the why. An unnatural combiner was a nightmare to a normal member of their kind. For a member of a true gestalt, it must have touched something far more primal that rooted in the Spark. Familiar trepidation flickered through him; he hoped that Hot Spot would be willing to speak on the matter. That would be the hardest part.

"Poor bastards," Groove said, and Prowl tried not to think of the reports of the combiner's appearance.

With a great stretch of arms and kibble and with an easy swagger, despite the subject that hung heavy in the air between them, Groove got to his feet. His plating bristled in a way most others would not notice: not the display of displeasure that would be more obvious, but a simple measure to ensure everything lay proper agains his frame. Prowl could notice the little nicks and tears of old wounds, from battles and the dwindling lack of supplies that made cosmetic repairs impossible.

"I'll get him."

He left, leaving Prowl alone with his thoughts on the war. Battles lost and won, and the territory gained by either side with each. Facts and numbers that would pull him under if he lingered too long on them. It was a relief when Groove returned with Hot Spot in tow. The Protectobot leader towered over Groove, the smallest of the unit to begin with, doubling him in height and tripling him in mass.

Regardless of the late hour, Hot Spot's red eyes were sharp, and there was a somberness to his posture. If Groove had not told him, he was likely able to guess the meaning of the call already. Groove knowing of it meant that he would ineviably know as well.

"Go to bed, Groove," Hot Spot said in that low rumble of his, gesturing a hand towards the door. It was delicate, especially considering how massive and imposing Hot Spot was to those who didn't know him. "I can take care of this."

For a fleeting Spark beat, Groove looked ready to argue. Prowl could imagine that he wanted to know finer points of the situation, but the rebellious thought passed and he gave a jaunty salute before departing; slipping away with the ease and grace only someone of his size was capable of. Prowl listened and watched in silence as Hot Spot sighed, the sound taking with it all the wind from his sails. Plating deflated, pulling close to his frame to make him look even smaller than he really was.

The dents and torn metal decorating his plating was more obvious than it had been for Groove, great scars raking across his chest and arms from battles and fire fights that he would have been too altruistic to ignore. It made Prowl's plating twitch with worry: others before himself, that was how he had operated since before they even met.

He tried to ignore it, but it was a feeling that lingered, never far from the fringes of his thoughts.

"Prowl," Hot Spot said, hand coming to rest on the back of the desk chair. His voice was clipped, tired. In an emotional way, and in the way that told Prowl he had not slept in what was perhaps days. Nonetheless, it seemed to Prowl that he had dared to smile, one that made his eyes glow despite the mask hiding away from his mouth. "I'm betting you didn't call just to talk to me."

The words "I wish I was" danced at the tip of Prowl's tongue, but he bit them back and swallowed them. It was a sentiment that was not appropriate at the moment. Instead he straightened his back, squaring his shoulders and allowing his door wings a single flutter. "Things are a little too dire for that, unfortunately." That damn monotone stubbornly clung to his words, and it drew out an even more somber look from Hot Spot.

"I know," he said with a low, heaving sigh. He sat in the chair, which now seemed too small for him. In better circumstances, Prowl would have laughed. But there was an under current of frustration and longing in his voice. "And," he went on, "you know you don't have to be verbal with me, Prowl."

In spite of all his careful posturing, Prowl's body unwound by just a few degrees. An invitation for signing. Relief pulsed through him, a physical sensation thumping in his chest as he raised his hands into view of the screen. 

As the professionalism melted away, Prowl's plating deflated to press against his frame in much the same way as Hot Spots; he was no longer beholden to his persona that gave an air that he was on the same thought plane as the rest of High Command- the always in control spymaster, even though he did have a habit of tocking when everyone else was ticking.

"I assume you know why I'm calling," he said. It was not a question, could never be a question, especially not with the way Hot Spot shuddered at his words.

It was just the slightest of ripples along heavy plating, almost imperceptible. But Prowl never missed anything.

"The new combiner."

Prowl had expected the topic to be touchy, but he was not prepared for the utter exhaustion that punctuated Hot Spot's words. Just the tired defeat that infiltrated the air and dragged it down with the weight of the tragedy that had slipped their attention. There was self blame lingering in the air, he could tell, from himself and the Protectobots and all the others who had failed to find the missing unit after their capture.

He had to remind himself, separate from all the projection and internal anger towards his own inability to do anything, that as the war drew on and grew steadily more dire, and assumption that those missing were dead was reasonable. They had been unable to find even word on where they were kept, and there were only so many Decepticons could keep their prisoners.

"How much do you know?"

Hot Spot looked away, towards some fixed point on the wall. "Not much, just the...gossip. Hearsay. But the consistent thing." He shifted his weight in he chair, causing a scratching of metal against metal that made Prowl flinh involuntarily. "Is that they're _hurt_." A broad hand reached up to drag down his face, tracing a faint scar from an old reconstruction on his faceplate that still left a noticeable groove. Noble Hot Spot, guilty for anyone in pain.

He turned to Prowl, eyes narrowed, their red glow piercing and enough to kill a lesser bot. But Prowl did not even flinch, though he felt exposed under the scrutinizing gaze. His door wings fluttered to relieve some of the pressure that had built up in his back, coiling the delicate machinery there until it was all tight enough to snap; Hot Spot did not think so little of him to be judgmental. They'd been together for thousands of years, they knew each other better than anyone else.

"Who is it."

Prowl said nothing for a long moment, eyes closing. He could not bear to look at Hot Spot, could not bare face him when he uttered the horrible truth that chilled him from Spark to fingertips.

"You can't tell anyone," he said. In his minds eye, from knowledge of countless late night conversations that plagued their pre-war life, he could see Hot Spot opening his mouth to argue. So he continued, "You can tell the other Protectobots, but no one else. They have to swear to that, too."

Hot Spot gave a solemn nod, then said, "You have my word. All of ours, I promise." And Prowl believed him, as he always had in all the years they'd known each other. "And we'll do damage control once it gets out." The "because it will" was left unsaid, but Prowl knew it to be true all the same.

"It's the Aerialbots." Hot Spot stiffened, head cocking to the side. Prowl's vents stuttered, and he went on, trying to keep his hands from shaking and thus making him unintelligible, "I know...I know we had assumed them dead, but-"

"The Decepticons are capable of an awful lot," Hot Spot cut in. "An unnatural combiner made of the Aerialbots. Primus."

Prowl wondered if the same numbers that ran through his head since the report had been given were running through Hot Spot's head. Ten years. Just ten years to replicate something that even natural gestalt units could hardly begin with understand. There was a long moment of silence between the two, and Prowl did not dare say anything to break Hot Spot from his thoughts, lest he draw ire that had yet to be contained by logical thinking. Instead her wandered through his own mental landscape, waiting for Hot Spot to break the silence.

Neither side of the war was a stranger to underhanded tactics, Prowl knew, running through the battles that had been fought so far. After the century mark, when it became evident to those in positions of power that the war had dug in for the long haul, things became a little more dubious. But it was hard, in the ways that doing the right thing so often were.

"So you're calling me," Hot Spot said, breaking Prowl back into the present. He spoke slowly, and there was a clear underlay of suppressed anger to ever word. "To ask about combiners?"

Prowl nodded, not able to make eye contact. "Yes," he said. "You're the expert and..." A pause, a shudder passing through his systems to make plating rattle in quiet waves against his frame. "And I thought that you'd rather talk to me about it, rather than someone like Ironhide, or even Perceptor."

Hot Spot regarded him, and something in his demeanor changed. Subtle things, like the set of his shoulders and the narrowing of his eyes which kept wandering over to the door, towards the rest of the Protectobots. Prowl stared at him, searching his face and frame as his own plating drew ever closer to himself in that involuntary reaction of fear. He had known Hot Spot for thousands of years and had come to be familiar with his moods and expressions in ways he could not do with other 'bots. And now with the subtlest shifts, Prowl had lost that grasp.

"Hot Spot...?" he ventured. 

The leader of the Protectobots turned his attention to him, gaze intense in ways unfamiliar to Prowl. "Before we start, I have a question," he said in that same clipped tone, and Prowl's mind whirled and tried to slow to a calm, with which he could logic out what brought this on. It could be any number of things, and he didn't like to apply the more unsavory ones to someone he had come to know as genuine in his altruism.

Prowl stilled the rattling of his systems, giving his head a shake so small he was sure Hot Spot did not notice it to clear his thoughts. And then, he gave a slow nod. "Of course." The signs were careful and measured, betraying none of the feeling still roiling in the pit of his Spark.

"You aren't going to...use this information are you?" A pause, Prowl so taken aback he was unable to say anything for a moment. Hot Spot continued, planting an elbow on his desk as he leaned towards the screen, "_If_ you rescue the Aerialbots, I'm not going to see any of this replicated?"

Prowl did not miss the implication, no matter how off guard he'd been caught by the sudden shift in Hot Spot's demeanor. It made him sit up straighter, made him tilt his jaw upwards in a false show of defiance. "Of course you aren't," he said. "This is just to figure out what we're dealing with, get some idea of it."

The look on Hot Spot's face was very much like the one he gave to the rest of his team, when he didn't believe something they said to him. It was hard for Prowl to pinpoint the exact meaning of it, all the emotions that made the expression more nuanced. "But I mean after all that," he said. "I'll help, but I need you to promise me."

Prowl could not help the recoil that drew him back into his seat, nor the curl of his hands at the implication that struck deep through the chest. "I would _never,_" he said. He switched to verbal speech, if only for that moment, his words slow and stumbling into each other in ways he hated, choked out in emotion. "What happened is horrifying, I could. Never."

He had seen the footage already supplied, seen the way the combiner shambled along with its joints that shrieked with poorly aligned metal and energon that never seemed to stop dripping from continuously open wounds along his seams. A nightmare to inflict on people, an image that haunted at the edges of Prowl's mind just waiting for him to let his guard down.

This in turn caught Hot Spot off guard, and he blinked. The tension that was in his shoulders eased, and a low sigh shook his vents. "I know _you _wouldn't," he said, the edge of his voice melting away. "It's just...everyone else."

He waved a hand, dismissing some thought like it was an annoying insect. But he still looked different, and it made something in Prowl's chest twist. At the very least, he knew that Hot Spot trusted him, and he couldn't really say his worry was unwarranted- anything could be useful, when those in charge were desperate enough. Prowl rose his hands to sign again, shaking away the uncertainty that had seized his joints.

"I promise," he said, "that this will just be used to help them."

Hot Spot gave a stiff nod, and replied, "What do you need to know?"

The two of them had, in the past, spoken of combiners and what it was like. But never in this kind of scenario, only in the kind of way that remained a little out of reach and strange and never to be elaborated on. Prowl never thought much on the intricacies of the process, and had never bothered to ask. The whole thing was simply part of the package with Hot Spot and his fellows, a strange kind of thing that no one at all understood, least of all those involved in it.

"I think the mental link is the most important," Prowl said. "We know how to take you apart physically--" Hot Spot cringed a little at it, no doubt recalling all the close calls he had had in the past few centuries, when they had dared sent out Defensor "--but the mental aspect seems a little more...difficult."

"If I'm honest," Hot Spot said, after a moment of thought, the anger melting away to consideration, "I don't even know how they would replicate it. We've talked about this." He gestured towards his head, tilting it from one side to the other.

"Right," Prowl said. "You said it isn't like a psychic link, when you're not combined. It was more like...how did you put it?"

"Like the imprint of a memory, at the edges of my mind. I can feel all of them here, but their emotions aren't exactly clear." That was something Prowl understood, though he didn't find a need to make such a comment. He remained silent as Hot Spot went on, "If I focus, I get a clearer image. But it's mostly just vague." A pause, and then, "Even that feels like it does it a disservice. My point is, that isn't something you can replicate. And when we're joined? It's like being everyone at once while still being...you."

There was a pause, and Prowl wondered if the same realization was striking Hot Spot as it curled into his own chest, burning away at the delicate workings there.

"Do you think the Constructicons were involved at all?" Prowl said. "Who else would understand it and be willing to do something like that?"

Hot Spot heaved a shrug, and said, "I don't know. Part of me wants to say no because it's...Prowl, if I'm honest the whole idea of this is making my circuits crawl. I think any combiner would feel that way."

The words "but they're Decepticons" died on Prowl's tongue and he shut down that train of thought. To keep things on track he said, "Then how would they link people together? Shadowplay?"

Another dismissive wave from Hot Spot. "I don't think so. I'd put shanix on a cortical psychic patch." His shoulders hunching inward against some unseen feeling for just a fraction of a second. "There are a lot of ways for those to go wrong."

Prowl tapped his lips with his thumb, eyes narrowing. "So if that's the case, what happens when they break apart? Will that kill them?"

Killing them was not an option, couldn't be even in the realm of the possible. It was why those on Yuss had evacuated, to avoid any undue harm to their captured brothers in arms who were, in a manner obvious to anyone watching, in no way acting of their accord. 

"I don't know," Hot Spot said, letting out a low, long sigh with a great heaving shrug of his shoulders. "Immediate mnemosurgery might be able to help cut any of that off, but I'm worried about the physical connection. Whatever it is keeping them powered and all those Sparks operating...Say you hit the weak spot, what's keeping them together? We hardly know how we combine- what if vital fuel lines are connected? What if they're welded together?"

In his minds eye he could see the energon that had congealed at the joints, from where twisted metal had continually healed and pulled apart and had been allowed no proper rest. He thought about the five Sparks linked together, powering such a mammoth being with their own life force. And he thought of a well placed shot, aimed at the weak spot all combiners possessed, causing them to fall apart. But instead of a clean break of limbs separating at major joints, forcing them back into root modes, he imagined circuits and fuel lines pulling apart and snapping like brittle pieces of glass as the weight of each Aerialbot proved too much for them.

"We'll have doctors on scene," he said, though he knew he sounded uncertain. 

And Hot Spot, ever more perceptive on the small quirks of emotion than Prowl ever could, even with all his databases, continued to watch him with a steady eye. Prowl's wings twitched and fidgeted under his gaze, something he wouldn't let happen with any other company. He was silent for a long time, and Prowl watched every minute shifting of his weight to get some idea of what he was thinking. But even as he did that his own mind whirled with all the variables and probabilities, and his wing flicks grew more agitated the more it became apparent that the odds truly weren't in their favor.

At least that was how it seemed for the time being, he assured himself. He stilled himself with a soft venting of air, expelling all the doubt that seemed determined to crawl their way into every crevice of his processor.

"I'll have to talk about it with the others," Hot Spot finally said. He shrugged, adding, "I'm sorry I can't be more helpful but I... Primus, Prowl, the amount of manipulation it must have taken to get a combiner like that moving. _We_ were meant to combine, our t-cogs are made for it. I can tell you they're going to be mangled, and I don't know if that's the sort of thing you can fix."

"We will." We have to.

Hot Spot looked more than a little dubious, but made no comment on it. Instead he said, with all the doubt that Prowl felt in his own frame, "I hope so."

"I'll talk to my people," Prowl said, "While you talk to yours." He waited for Hot Spot to make an obection to the other Protectobots being labeled as his people, but he made no such thing, so Prowl continued on. "And we'll...reconvene, I suppose." He dressed a hand to his forehead, vents huffing softly. "Hopefully we'll have a better idea of how to go forward."

He was already planning how to spread his spies, the best places to send them to gather as much intel as possible. There was some relief at the fact that they had some kind of idea of where to start, and if they could figure out where the Decepticon combiners were then they could have even more of a foothold. He could have smiled, if only the odds weren't still stacked against them.

"Good luck, Prowl," Hot Spot said. "Talk to you later."

And the screen went black.


	3. Moonracer

"So here's what's happening."

Prowl's voice was dispassionate from where he stood among the rest of the command, his palms pressed flat on the table and his wings held carefully still. Moonracer watched him maintain his poise and detachment with distrust, biting at a chipping piece of paint on her thumb. She had never been a fan of how in control he always was, with that smooth voice that teetered on monotone that gave away no emotion.

It wasn't enough to send a chill through her spinal strut, but she'd seen lesser bots suppress their trembling plating when he was "in the zone" as it was. He never seemed to notice it, at least not to her knowledge. Just barreled on as he always did.

Her eyes followed him as he straightened and began to pace, arms angling to hook below the wings he drew slightly upward to accommodate the posture of having his hands clasped behind his back. He moved behind projections of the council who could not physically attend the meeting, preoccupied with their own problems in the war three years after her last meeting with them.

She sent a sideways glance at Powerglide seated beside her, whose eyes slid over to meet hers as soon as he realized she was watching him. After a brief moment of contact, he turned back to give Prowl his full attention. She kept watching him, and it was hard for her gaze not to trail to the spiderweb of a scar that stretched along a good percentage of his wing, left from the same flight years earlier that had brought the current state of the Aerialbots to everyone's attention. The paint was several shades brighter than the rest of him, still so new compared to everything else. She was sure her own paint job looked much the same, uneven and mismatched over ragged scars.

Eventually, and with something very close to reluctance, she turned away from him and back towards Prowl, pulling her plating ever so slightly closer to her frame. All eyes were on him, so there was no risk of anyone noticing the sudden change; even if they had, they likely would have thought it due to the cold that had taken hold of the planet, instead of the prickling memory of the battle with the Aerialbots.

While Powerglide had been concerned with the twisting body, she was haunted by his face. She pushed the image of it out of her mind, knowing that she would have to face it again sometime soon.

"My sources," Prowl was saying, code for his spies that reached through the Decepticons and their territory like long, treacherous roots that fed any and all information back to the Autobots, "have tracked the pattern of Decepticon attacks wherein..." A pause, an uncharacteristic moment of uncertainty as a deep frown pulled at the corners of Prowl's already down turned mouth. In that second of silence, she watched his wings twitch and his plating shift just enough for her to notice the movement at all.

He cleared his throat, and with that same even note that did not even hint at what had caused the hesitation, he continued, "Wherein the new Decepticon combiner has been used against us..."

Around him, she noticed High Command nodding along with his words. Some looking resigned to it, like Perceptor with his slight frown, while Ironhide looked something murderous, shoulders tensed and fists clenched for a fight. She wondered how much information he had given them before this meeting. Sure he must have briefed them on all of it, she thought. At the very least, he must have given Optimus Prime a rundown, so the whole operation could have been approved in the first place. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ratchet on the far end of the half circle table where they had been arranged, with the tension in his frame so evident even in the stuttering hologram of his image that she thought he might snap something.

"It isn't perfect, of course, but with time we were able to figure out the variables." Prowl cast a look in Ironhide's direction. A dare, of course. The doer vs the thinker. Moonracer half expected Ironhide to say something, to challenge that they should not have waited so long, but she was unsurprised when he remained silent and only narrowed his eyes. It wasn't the time for an argument about methods. "And we believe we have figured out the most likely place for them to strike again.

Moonracer's own mouth took a turn downward as he continued on, thinking about all the attacks she had heard of in the intervening years. Every now and then the Decepticons sent out their shoddy excuse for a combiner as some final push to force the Autobots into retreat; no one wanted to harm captured Autobots, not the soldiers nor those in command. And the Decepticons knew that. But she still wondered, as a bristle passed along her spine, if their hands would be forced regardless if this one mission was a failure. Resources weren't unlimited, and there were only so many soldiers who could be thrown at a problem before the loss was no longer justifiable.

She pushed that out of her mind. 

"Rotorstorm has offered himself and his men for aerial backup," Prowl said.

Moonracer couldn't see the commander, nor any of his men, present at the meeting. Maybe they had been briefed beforehand. Maybe they had crowded into some small room on whatever outpost they had been stationed on, watching the meeting before they were collected for the mission. She didn't even know where they were, though that was a moot point in the grand scheme of things.

"Some other fliers have also offered their services, non-combat or otherwise." She couldn't miss the frustration in his voice, accompanied by a twitching of his plating around his elbows. Like he wanted to move his hands but wasn't allowing himself to. Didn't want to truly break the image of calm, she thought. Then, he turned to her and Powerglide, his eyes narrowed and gaze intent. "Moonracer, you've been recruited to perform sniper duty. As one of the best snipers we have, it was decided that you were our best option for this operation."

She sat up a little straighter, lifting her chin just slightly and it wasn't only for proper posture. She listened to his praise of her abilities, however muted they were, and tried to stamp down the swell of pride in the face of his words. Some part of her that preened and showed off thought she should puff out her chest, to insist that she wasn't just one of the best, she was the best period. But she stayed silent. Nothing about this situation was about her.

Besides, Powerglide deserved as much praise as she did, being her eyes in the sky and all. All snipers had their fliers, and they were a perfect team.

The meeting moved on to semantics, to the fine points of the plan that Moonracer nodded along to, in the sense that it was more or less what she had expected the rescue operation to be like. There were some small minutia that did not concern her or her partner, which faded into the background of her mind, faded away in favor of prickling nerves and electricity that jolted through her circuits as finalizations cemented around her.

The mission really was a-go, then. The Aerialbots were really in reach, just close enough for them to grasp. She dug her teeth into her thumb again, hoping the pressure would help ground her and still the jitters that were settling into her joints and threatening to spread throughout her entire body. Beside her, Powerglide sat with rapt attention, his kibble flicking every now and then as his own place in the scheme settled into him.

Part of her, some small andnagging part of her, wished to voice how dangerous it all was, how risking some of their fliers might have dire results. But the part of her that had been a soldier for the past several hundred years, as opposed to a mere racer who had never managed to break into the big circuits, said it was worth it. If it worked, it would all be worth it. Air rattled from her vents as plating shifted, and she wondered if anyone noticed how nervous she was. She wondered if anyone else was nervous, too.

They were finally given an estimated time for the mission, though it was not nearly as down to the minute as Prowl's work tended to be, and they were dismissed. Moonracer stood, anxious eyes meeting Powerglide's anxious eyes for the briefest of seconds, and then made her way towards the shooting range. In the wells of her Spark, she knew there was no room for error.

\---

The day came soon enough, and it hit hard and fast. A battle had broken out almost instantly, as Autobot troops dropped in at the fringes of Decepticon held territory as per the plan to join with those already stationed there.

Moonracer ground her teeth together in ways so tight her jaw ached as she ducked below the battered windowsill of the high-rise she had designated as her nest, before a Decepticon could spot her and decimate whatever was left of the shattered window. The edges of her plating - sharp from lack of proper grooming procedures - dug uncomfortably into wood imported from some organic plant that had once been proofed against damage from the places metal occupants.

The home of a rich person, essentially, was what that told her.

Her gun, polished and cleaned and checked to the nines to make sure it was in total working order - more attention given to it than herself in the last few weeks - was clutched to her chest in such a way that even the tip of the barrel wouldn't give her away. The house itself shook with the battle raging around her on the ground below, from bother new arrivals and those stationed there long term. The turbulence of a fierce dog fight made the very foundations shake, threatening to topple what was left of the already partially demolished apartment complex. She sent a furtive glance towards the ceiling, where dust was already falling, plating pulling close and joints tightening in prepration to dodge any falling debris. She curled her legs closer to her body.

She had suspected, when she had taken the winding staircase two steps at a time and jumping over the places where steps had fallen away, that a collapse was possible. But the place was still the sturdiest high rise, with the best view of the battlefield, that she had been able to find. The city had been ravaged by the war, just like all the other places designated as a free for all.

"I see him," Powerglide said over her comm link, just as she was preparing herself to contact him. His voice was low and strained, and she knew that as he circled the perimeter he wouldn't dare fly any closer. She couldn't blame him. "He's coming this way." Over the line she could hear the shift in his engines, as he banked to return to them in preparation of the next phase.

Before he even said the words, reminding her to give the signal, she was preparing the special incendiary shot she had been given, to be used when the time was right. The cons would soon be fleeing the scene to let their combiner take care of what remained, though sometimes Decepticons would remain to take out those who were trying to escape in the chaos. It didn't matter, at any rate; when the Aerialbots were in range, she would fire and the bloom of blue fire would alert those on standby to go into position.

She crawled back over to the windowsill, crouching low as she braced the barrel of the gun against the sill and pressing her trained eye to the scope. It was chaos below, just as the fight in Yuss had been, but she was able to pick out enemies from allies with the ease of someone who had been doing this for hundreds of years. Her jittering nerves soothed as she filed her thoughts away, into a familiar state of being on the battlefield. All she could do was wait, and help where she could in the meantime.

Minutes ticked by, seemingly endless as they marched onward into hours, and more and more her instincts took over. A few shots were fired, taking out the Cons she spotted creeping up on unsuspecting Autobots. Thee was no thought to it, though she knew that eventually in the time after the battle her Spark would tense and ache and she would be lost in her memories of what she had done. And those were always at the edge of her awareness, in ways that she ignored in favor of efficiency against the enemy. An enemy that was ever dwindling, as the Decepticons vanished one by one until only a handful of them remained. It was only a matter of time, then.

Her plating flared for an instant, before settling back down against her frame to shake away the tension and maybe even reluctance that was beginning to set into her joints. Of all missions, this was not the one to deliberate on the fine points of morality of war. Especially not when she'd seen what had become of the Aerialbots.

"Now!" Powerglide's voice cut through her thoughts, and she jerked her gun upward to watch a hulking figure approach from the west, with a small red jet leading it there.

Moonracer leveled her gun at the foundation of a distant building, one that was already toppling onto the ground below and was not steady enough for anyone to be inside. And one that hopefully would not easily give away her position. With careful hands, she loaded the incendiary. As she prepared to fire she let out a short huff of air through her vents, chasing away the last of the unease. She pulled the trigger.

The effect was immediate. There was a crack of a small explosion, and an eruption of flames that died down almost immediatley, but it drew the eye nonetheless. She ducked down under cover once again, so that searching eyes of the remaining 'Cons wouldn't spot her. The world around them had gone eerily silent, as if the flames had swallowed up all the noise of battle with its short life, and she could hear every creek of the building she was in as the foundations strained under all the chaos. She could hear her own internals, from the whir of her fans to the gentle ticking of gears.

Then, shattering that void where all noise was destined to die in, can the thrum of flier engines as those waiting in the proverbial wings took to the sky. Too many for her to count the individuals, though she would have known them by sight had she looked out to watch them take flight, just one harmonious noise that was at the very least more uniform than the chaos of battle.

They had their orders, and she had her's. She had some idea of what the fliers were to do, all orders cleanly delivered by Prowl, who never seemed to waver, not once. He had ears and eyes everywhere, he had every fact available; she had heard the rumors that he was all knowing, even though she knew it wasn't true. It couldn't be.

The fliers assigned to the mission - military or otherwise - were to fly distraction, with some holding off on the sidelines with some grounder alt modes to make sure the battle didn't get too out of hand. Powerglide, for his part, was to dart around the combiner while looking for his weak spot, with all the finesse and agility at his disposal so he wouldn't get knocked out of the sky. And then there was her, the only sniper on the scene because no one else had been available.

Her fans stuttered as doubts crept into her thoughts, but she flared her plating to shake out those nagging feelings before pressing them firm against her once again. This mission was now or never.

She lifted back up to a crouch, positioning herself once again in preparation to shoot from her vantage point. The thunderous footfalls of the unnatural combiner jolted up her spine as he approached, making her joints tense up against the sensation every time despite her best efforts to remain relaxed. Easy, she told herself. Nice and slow. She stared down the scope of her rifle, sweeping along the battlefield for any stragglers on the ground, watching as less sound buildings had debris shaken loose by the earthquake like footfalls, and trying her best to ignore the nagging sense in the back of her mind that she was attempting to prolong having to see the mutilated forms of Autobot prisoners.

The world had become alive once again with the cacophony of battle, though it was different this time. Not so much the typical back and forth volley of gun fire and heavy weaponry that had become white noise to her over the course of the war, but the roar of engines combating with the great creaking sounds of the combiner. Every movement of him sent a new wave of chills up her spine, the grinding of gears forcibly jammed together and joints hobbled together of mangled bodies setting her teeth on edge. She wondered if that had been intentional, in some horrific way, a breed of psychological warfare to only compound how visceral the sight of this mammoth being was. It was not out of the realm of possibility, especially when the Decepticons used him to chase out Autobots from straggling base camps.

There was a great rush of air, and the sound of metal crashing against metal with enough force to crumple alloy. Moonracer scanned the air, catching sight of some poor flier with a torn wing now spiraling out of the sky towards the ground below after the combiner had apparently swatted him aside like some irritating insect. She watched another flier dive low to catch him, slowing his descent so that one of those still on the ground could take him aside to safety before a Decepticon got to him first. His coloration - pale purples and white - did little to ease the tension building in her throat, choking out her ability to speak, if she had any reason to. With reluctance, she went to search the skies for the red streak that would be Powerglide, knowing that doing so would force her to look at the combiner in full.

The Aerialbot team looked ever worse for wear than they had the last time she had seen them in person. She had heard word, in the form of quiet whispering and hushed rumors that inevitably spread through Autobot bases, that this was the case. But it still made her Spark freeze, kicking her fans into a whirlwind of activity. It was only by grace of Primus that she could control herself enough to keep her hands steady.

The metal at their seams, were they were stitched together in awkward ways, was ragged from the years of tearing and rubbing against each other in ways they were never meant to. Original colors had faded, though not in the gunmetal grey that made up a corpse; sun bleached colors and areas where the paint had long since chipped away, leaving long gashes across the limbs like horrible scarring that did nothing to hide the injuries sustained from the handful of battles they had been sent into. But the blue of energon stood vibrant, still bubbling from never healing wounds where twisted metal ground against twisted metal and leaving streaks where it fell, on its journey to the ground below. So vibrant against everything else that Moonracer, in some irrational part of her brain, thought that perhaps they would be stained permanently blue from now until eternity.

But worst of all, she thought, was their face. She had to force herself to keep from looking at it, knowing that once she did she may not be able to stop. Even so, her eyes cause glimpses of it as she followed Powerglide's flight, as he dodged around hands attempting to drive him away with their slow, agonized pace.

It was not so much a face as it was an amalgamation of wires and metal, altered in such a way as to resemble a face. She was not sure what parts were used, nor from which of the Aerialbots, but it looked like the attempt of a newly formed child to recreate what they thought a face ought to look like. Circuitry, exposed to the elements and protective casings already striping away to reveal wires underneath, wove together in a mesh pattern not quite tight enough to mimic sentio metallico. The mouth was a gaping hole in the approximate space where a mouth should be present. The only thing at all that looked right were the eyes, which were a brilliant shade of red and constantly surveyed the land below.

"Prima and Solus," she breathed, drawing away from her rifle for just a moment to gather herself. The look of that would haunt her nightmares for the rest of her years, she knew that. But under all the fear of it, anger burned. The indignity and horror of it all crawled through her, overtaking the fear to sooth her nerves into something more productive.

She returned to monitoring Powerglide's flight, watching as he darted between blows and flinching when a strike came too close to a wing; the disruption of air always gave him a moment of instability, and every time she worried would be the one that would cause him to crash and tumble to the earth below, just as the other flier before him had. But he always corrected himself, and went back to his task while she sighed in relief.

She just wanted this to be over.

As the battle dragged on, minutes ticking into hours and some small corner of her worried that maybe this fight would stretch into days until exhaustion was the victor, she took to firing at the combiner. Nothing to cause lasting damage, and nothing more serious than what those flying distraction were doing, simply annoyances to keep their attention away from Powerglide as he continued to search for the weak spot that would allow Moonracer to break them to pieces.

It had occurred to her, and she was sure that others among them with Prowl included, that perhaps the unnatural nature of the combiner meant that there was no weak point to speak of. What if the Decepticons had tried to do away with the most serious of a combiners weaknesses, and sealed that point to give them no openings. But they had to have left it; from her understanding of combiners, which was by her own admission incredibly limited, doing something like that would hinder maneuverability too much. The weak spot was where they all joined together, like a pivot. Come hell or high water, there would be a way to access it. And if anyone could find it, it would be Powerglide. 

It took a great amount of effort to not call out to him, to ask about the progress of his search. But she knew, from her experience as a racer, that sometimes discussion would cause more distraction than anything else. So she bit her tongue, and waited for word from him.

It felt like forever, and there was so little she could do in the meantime.

Her mind wandered over to thoughts that maybe if she looked hard enough at the decay of the limbs, she could see the glow of the individual Sparks that made up each part. It would have been morbid, but she knew that every limb was powered by a Spark. It was part of the reason neither faction sent out a combiner unless it was totally unnecessary- damage one part enough, and the break apart would likely kill that member of the team. And that was even with every Spark being naturally hidden away, even more secure than that of an average 'Bots.

It was just a matter of whether or not the Decepticons cared to follow such things, if they were banking on the Autobots not daring to harm their own members. At any rate the damage gained over years of neglect meant that any protective layerings might have worn down away. But she was not going to look; she couldn't look.

Powerglide had vanished behind the combiner, and he twisted around to follow his path with those red eyes of his, ignoring all the other fliers present. Something in Moonracer's throat clicked at the sight of his back, metal there having peeled away to reveal a length of his spine, lengthened and enforced with something she didn't know the name of.

"I think I've found it," Glider's voice said over the comm as he made another pass around the combiner's torso, angling towards his hips. Tight and tinged with pain, from a near miss she must have missed. He must be as stressed about the situation as she was, and he was in far closer quarters than her.

God damn.

"Thank God," she said, not even bothering to hide her relief. "Mark it so we can be _done_ with this."

The end was in sight, and she prayed to whoever could hear it, whoever mattered, that it would work. Allowing herself to follow that positive trail of thought, she realized she did not envy the doctors that would be working on the post-rescue effort. It might have just been her lack of medical knowledge, but she couldn't even begin to figure out this all would be fixed. Things were so easy to break, so much harder to put back together. But it was all worth it, she promised herself.

She braced herself, cutting off all thoughts to just focus on her work. Powerglide marked the weak spot he had found with paint the same shade of blue as the signal from some sort of device that had been added to his undercarriage in preparation for this. Job done, he peeled away to shoot into the sidelines, giving Moonracer room to do her job. The other fliers followed suit, though most hovered around to swoop in to rescue falling bodies before the Decepticons could get to them and render everything pointless.

Moonracer sighed, vents huffing a stream of hot air that carried out all her lingering fears and doubts and anything else that did not pertain to the action of shooting. She readied herself, steeling against the windowsill and bracing her knees so metal dug into soft wood. Joints relaxed, eye at the scope.

Finger tightened around the trigger.

Bang.


	4. Rotorstorm

"What happened?"

The thousandth time the question had been asked, from the thousandth member of military brass whose faces all blended together after the tenth time he'd been asked. 

Since arriving at the small base, since being shuffled from the groundbridge to makeshift medical bay, Rotorstorm had not been able to escape the prying questions. He understood why it was happening, from all his years and experience as a member of the Cybertronian Military, by rite of forging and alt mode. But every time someone looked at him, and opened their mouth to ask the same things over and over ad nauseam, his nerves frayed just a bit more. His rotors, damaged in the fight that he had run from, ached just by several more degrees. By the fiftieth time, wary and worn down and so utterly exhausted, he wanted nothing more than to tell everyone to leave him be, so that he may crawl into whatever bed provided for him and sleep it all off.

The pain and guilt and memory of Silverbolt's betrayal as he called a retreat. It itched under his plating, and he had yet to be given even a moment of reprieve.

And still he answered, every time he was asked. Down to the minutest detail, though he was sure some things were already becoming muddy. Because it was his duty as a soldier to do such things, and it was his duty as a friend to Silverbolt so that everyone may know what happened. He would recite it until the whole picture was complete, with his own recounting combining with those of his men who had been present for the battle gone wrong. Those who were in positions of power but otherwise inexperienced with war saw it as a sensible action to minimize loss of life. It seemed to him that even those who had been military personnel in that period of Before could see the logic in it: outgunned, outnumbered, with only so much one could do before they were captured or worse.

He almost wished he had been yelled at for it. For ordering his men to fall back and getting separated from Silverbolt and his men. For being unable to save even one of them.

Perched on one of the beds in the medical bay, back hunched from exhaustion while a spindly medic without the kibble to mark him as a pre-war doctor poked around his back. His plating shifted as some undetermined instrument pressed against where his rotor mast met his back in that digging way that sent jolts of discomfort through his frame. All the while one of the commanders on base was pressing him with questions, and he answered each one as carefully as he could. There was effort to keep frustration out of his tone.

What his mind kept looping to, separate from what everyone was interested in hearing, was that the day had been warm. Comfortably so, after months of frigid air that had made routine patrols unpleasant. The two units - his own and Silverbolt's - had been just...talking. Performing their necessary duty with the necessary amount of diligence, of course, but the weather had been clear and nice enough to pretend all present parties were not players in a hostile war.

Clear sunny skies and agreeable winds, which in retrospect seemed too perfect. The kind of perfect that would inevitably lead to disaster.

His vents shuttered a sigh and he flinched. The commander stopped speaking, his own kibble quirking as his head tilted to the side.

"Are you all right, Rotorstorm?" he said, breaking formality to address him by name instead of rank. 

Rotorstorm stared at him, giving no reply as he tried to figure out if this was an invitation to speak freely, or if it was the sort of rhetorical that was supposed to be answered with a "yes" so they could move on with the inquiries as if nothing had happened. After a moment of silence, save for the gentle clink of metal as the doctor continued his work, the commander's stance and postured softened.

"You can be honest." 

Rotorstorm did not deflate in his relief, though part of him wanted to. Instead, his plating pressed a little closer to his frame and he let out another low, huffing sigh. "In all honesty? No. But I'll live." His rotors flexed, and his hiss of pain was only compounded by the sharp scold of the doctor. He stilled them so that the doctor, still grumbling something about the impatience of soldiers, could finish his work. "I'm still thinking of how to word a report to command."

The commander hummed, the plating along his shoulders flexing as he thought, raising hand to chin. "The cloaking system you've mentioned will be a point of interest," he said after a fashion.

Rotorstorm gave a curt, single nod. All those Decepticons lying in wait, not a single on detected by any sensor of anyone present. He wasn't sure how it happened, just that one second there was nothing but peaceful flight through calm air and the next someone unseen firing upon them.

Just beyond the city borders of Vaporhex, and just along the coastline, were a serious of cliff faces. As the patrolling soldiers approached, all had gone on alert for an ambush lying in wait, as they had always done on these routine missions. But there was nothing there, until a shot had been fired and sent both units scattering. And before they could regroup and go on the offensive, the 'Cons poured from their hiding places like insects disrupted from their shadowed homes.

Too many of them for just a small outpost that had nothing of value. Vaporhex was nothing more than a foothold for the Autobots, all valuable resources already stripped and sent away to more focal points of the army. It was a training ground more than anything else.

"Gotta keep out the panic," Rotorstorm said, and it was almost a joke. He could have cracked a smile, if he weren't too tired to keep up appearances of whatever cocksure soldier persona he had managed to build up over the years. "Can't let them know about how the 'Cons getting the drop on us like that freaked us out."

The commander hummed again, clasping his hands behind his back. "It was an ambush," he said.

"I know."

They had swarmed. There had been so many of them, and for every one that fell it felt like two more took their place. Ground soldiers and war birds circling, diving in and out to scatter the groups further and further. How did they now know they were there? All of them had their guard up, jovial conversations and any foolish belief that this was just a flight with friends having been dropped as they left open air and approached a place where anyone could be lying in wait. All sensors up, everyone scanning the area for anyone that was lying in wait.

His shoulders slumped, and he drew a hand over his face. Fingers trailed over grit and sand that had been kicked up during the battle, in all the chaos of dodging and trying to coordinate plans while trying to avoid getting shot. With the realization it was there, the sensation of sand burying and grinding in his gears caught his full attention, and he shifted his plating to dislodge what he could. A shower could wait until after sleep, though, he thought with a frown as he continued to ignore the doctor scolding his movements.

"It was a divide and conquer," Rotorstorm said. The idea of it had been lingering at the back of his mind the whole time, since the call for retreat and the realization that he would not be able to return to provide cover for the Aerialbots. He might as well try it out on someone. "Not an attempt to take Vaporhex but...capture. But why?" Teeth dug into his lip, prying at some tearing paint.

His thoughts lingered to him calling to Silverbolt, ordering him to order a retreat to his men. How there had been an explosion of gun fire that cut off his words, one that caught Air Raid's wing. Crumpled it in an explosion of fire and smoke and a horrific howl of pain that had chilled Rotorstorm's Spark and spread through his systems like ice. A man down and enemies on all sides. And nothing that could have been done, at that point.

Air rattled as it passed through his vents, and he kept himself still. "After Air Raid was shot down," he said, "I told Silverbolt we had to fall back. And I think they took advantage of Silverbolt's hesitation; one man down with no chance of rescue at that point, but Silverbolt wanted to try. So I said we had to go, and my men started to fall back. I was waiting for him to do the same, but then..." Silverbolt's voice ringing in his ear, calling for aid as Decepticons closed in around him. And all those bodies, determined to keep the two groups separated, so that he could not go back.

"They wanted one of us isolated, and Silverbolt is clearly not a soldier class." In some dim reaches of his mind, untouched by the wariness the situation brought, he remembered how amused he had been the first time he saw Silverbolt transform. He was a tall and spindly man, so much narrower than any of the fighter jets that followed his orders, but he was easily twice their length while in flight mode. How someone so small became something so big was beyond him. "Target him and those following him, and he'd be at a loss." 

Despite three hundred years of experience and a remarkable amount of skill for someone who had been a member of the courier class, there was only so much someone could do against those who had thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, years of experience.

"I heard you didn't find any trace of anyone when you returned to the battlefield," the commander said. His head cocked to the side, much like a curious turbofox, and he hummed thoughtfully. "Word travels quickly here," he added.

"Yeah, we didn't." He and his returned to the scene with reinforcements from Vaporhex, and they combed the area. Searching every nook and cranny, picking over energon soaked sand and bits of metal warped by the heat of various weaponry. None of the Decepticon wounded were found, and not a trace of the Aerialbots. Rotorstorm himself had discovered pieces left over from Air Raid's wing and frame from where he crashed to Cybertron; there was a trail of metal and energon along the ground, disrupted only by other pieces of metal and mortar shell, until the trail ran cold and there was not a trace left.

"Our head scientists will want to know about this," Rotorstorm said, voicing what he knew the commander was thinking, at least to some degree. "We couldn't even find a groundbridge." And it had been only an hour or two at most between the flight and return.

Experimental technology was always something that was a little outside his pay grade, reserved for those in charge whose orders trickled down to him. But the war was shifting the landscape beneath his feet and despite all his prowess at flight, there was little he could do to steady himself.

"Prowl and his spies will have a field day," he grumbled, and waited to be reprimanded for such a comment. But none came, only the long, thoughtful silences that seemed to punctuate the day. In the lulls, and for all his best efforts to the contrary, his mind lingered on the sounds of gunfire and cracking plating and Silverbolt's desperate voice, calling out for aid when it was too late. 

His Spark ached. He must hate him, he thought. And Rotorstorm would not let himself linger on the "if he was alive" part of the statement that dug its claws into the frazzled edges of his mind. He couldn't lest it drag him into the yawning abyss that he'd been standing at the edge of since he had even a moment to slow down; in a way, he didn't want the interrogations to end, regardless of growing exhaustion.

"It's a miracle you weren't captured," the medic broke in, so suddenly that Rotorstorm jumped. By that point the rotors at his back had been bound together, so that they could only sway as one from the mast as opposed to their natural splay. A precaution to avoid further harm to a now healing blade, temporary weld created to protect nanites as they did their work, but he still frowned as he attempted to flex them.

A miracle indeed. In one of the moments of chaos, a surprise shot had caught him off guard and tore through a rotor and caused mild damage to another. It had been part of the reason he had pushed for a retreat- there was only so much longer he could stay in the air, and as the leader of his unit he had to keep them together. He had only kept aloft through adrenaline and sheer force of will, and it had been another miracle that he hadn't crashed as soon as they touched back down in Vaporhex. It had been a bumpy landing, at any rate, though the dents to his plating had been minor, all things considered.

"And you shouldn't have waited so long to get this looked at," the medic added, eyes narrowing. "Could've needed a whole new rotor."

"Had to help search." He had insisted, even as those around him urged him to get treatment immediately. He'd make the journey back on foot if he had to, which was a foolish proposition, if a bold one befitting of him, and he was secretly thankful that one of the ground alts present had offered him a ride.

"Can't fault him for trying." The medic hummed, then gave him a pat on the shoulder. "You should rest, Roe," he said in a voice so soft and gentle it made Rotorstorm's plating itch. Couldn't anyone just have the decency for tearing into him for his failure?

And the thing that ate away at him, in ways that he could not properly articulate, was that just moments before the ambush he had reassured Silverbolt and his position as Aerialbot leader. Had said, and had meant even now, after everything, that if he was not meant to be in charge with his slight courier frame, he would not have been given that role. How that must have felt, to have those words ringing in your ear as the one who said them abandoned you to the wolves.

His plating rattled and smooth out, and he got to his feet. He gave a tired salute, and limped off to his assigned quarters where he hoped he would be able to get some sleep. No matter how troubled it would be, anything would be welcome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are actually two versions of this chapter. i might post the other one later.


	5. Shockwave

"What is happening here."

Shockwave's voice with a cool and even statement that stopped even the most hardened of his subordinates in their tracks. A guard, standing at the edge of the lab facility's roof, cast a nervous glance over his shoulder as Shockwave walked over to him. It was not so much a stalk, nor was it hurried, just a slow and purposeful walk with all the logical poise Shockwave had at his disposal. He kept the guard in his sights, optic locked onto wide, worried ones, though in his periphery he could see what the Guard held in his hands, outstretched and dangling over the roof's edge.

One of the prisoners. His own hands clawing and clutching at any and all handhold he could find on the guard's arm, his eyes dim with sedative but wild with terror all the same.

The roar of his fans was thundering in the still of the twilight air.

"Shockwave, sir," the guard said, with that slow and sharp stutter of someone trying to save face.

Shockwave did not know his name, nor did he care much to find out what it was. He merely continued to watch, waiting for whatever pathetic excuse he had forming in the swirls of his mind.

"The prisoner, he--" a pause, mouth going from its gape of surprise to a hard sneer directed at the Autobot. The Autobot, only concerned with his predicament, did not return with a sneer of his own. With hands that Shockwave noticed were shaking - something to consider later, of course - he tightened his grip, and closed his eyes. "He was trying to escape."

"I know that," Shockwave said, still level. It he had the capacity, he was sure he would be annoyed. "I was alerted immediately, and I saw the footage. "The alarm had gone off as soon as a breach had occurred, and he had paused in his work to watch the ensuing chase. His inflection did not change at all, as he added, "Put him down now, and I will consider not punishing you for working without my permission."

The guard's eyes turned back to Shockwave, mouth returning to a slacked look of surprise. "I wasn't going to actually drop him," he said. Defensive and hurried and too much like he hadn't realized the high possibility of an accident that would have resulted in the loss of a test subject. "I just... wanted to scare him."

"I understand that," Shockwave said, familiar as he was with the Decepticons wont towards violence and cruelty. "But he, nor the others, can actually escape. You know this."

He gestured for the guard to put the prisoner down. And without another word, without any more arguments to defend himself, the guard turned so he was facing solid ground and he released his grip on the Autobot. Though the Autobot - so much smaller and lighter than the fighter jet frame of the guard - had been placed with his feet on the ground, his knees buckled beneath him and he toppled to the ground. He lay where he fell, wings tucking against his back as best as he was able against the restraints of the inhibitor clamp as he curled in around himself. His plating pressed against his frame to make him look even smaller than he was, with systems rattling and roaring with unhindered panic.

It was almost pathetic, the way he shook and systems whined as a shell of whatever fearless leader he had been months ago. Shockwave approached him with that same slow, methodic pace. He knew the prisoner would not escape. He had no means to. He crouched low once he was beside him, close enough to touch. The prisoner, sensing his presence, flinched away; would have scrambled across the roof to the other side to be as far away as possible from him as they'd so often attempted in their cells, if he had been in the state of mind to do so.

The escape attempt, what Shockwave had been able to see of it from the limited vantage point of the security cameras, had been a fairly impressive one. All things considered, at any rate. The cell door had been opened for one reason or another, and he had overtaken the guard. Not through a fight, of course, but by launching himself over him and managing to stick the landing. He took flight - for what the term was worth, as it was not as if any of the test subjects could transform - down the corridors. The guards trying to apprehend him were dodged with ease, with his slight frame so perfect for courier tasks allowing him to out maneuver the hulking fighters that made up Shockwave's guard with surprising grace.

But there was only so much that he could do. Lack of energon and a fair dose of sedatives pumped into his system caught up to him eventually. He'd slowed and staggered and made the wrong judgement, and was recaptured. That had been the point Shockwave had stopped paying attention, assuming he was taken back to his cell, and began working on necessary adjustments to rations for the one who'd made a break for it. But an eventual glance at the screens showed him that no, the prisoner was not back where he should be, and he had gone on his search through the facility to find him. It didn't take long for guards to point him towards the roof.

"Acrophobia," Shockwave said. It was more to himself than anyone else, though it caused the Autobot to shudder and curl even tighter in on himself. Calculations and variables on how this incident may affect the greater experiment flashed through his mind, sorting themselves in their proper areas and working in the smooth and logical way of science. He addressed the guard, "Did you know?"

The guard wordlessly shook his head, wings taut and upright in a display of nervousness. "I didn't," he said. "By Primus I didn't. I just figured that since he couldn't fly..." He trailed off, in the apparent hope that that would be explanation enough.

And Shockwave supposed it was. By all logic, what flier would have any reason to fear the sky? They commanded it, after all, understanding it in ways those earth and water bound never would, unless they were lucky enough to change their frame. But this one...

He recalled finding evidence of an old and since corrected issue with this one's gyroscope. A few early years with a malfunctioning sense of direction while in the air, which would inevitably lead to a crash if not discovered by a doctor first, was likely the root cause of his apparent fear of heights.

Shockwave stood, tapping his gun of a hand against his hip as he regarded the still cowering Autobot. He knew that, in a previous life that seemed more like a faded memory belonging to some stranger than his actual lived experiences, he would have felt some degree of sympathy for him. Perhaps too much sympathy for him, by definition of others. But as it was, there was only the Project. It was fortunate that at the very worst this would only be a mild setback, even if it turned out that this fear response was part of something more serious. The Autobot soldiers did not need to be in total working order for things to move forward, even though that would make things easier.

He filed that way to the back of his mind, his eyes never leaving the shaking form of the prisoner. How different he was now, months into captivity. When the group was first brought in, he remembered with perfect clarity, they had been full of fire and fight and snarling words, as he had expected. The still stood defiant in what ways they could as time chipped away at resolve, but there was only so much one could take before giving into despair with no sense of rescue insight. He would have tutted at the turn of events, if he had the capacity for the sort of petty behaviors that other Decepticons possessed. Instead, he turned his attention back to the guard.

"Allow him to calm down," he said. There was no point in needlessly worrying the others over something so ultimately insignificant. "And then then take him back to his cell."

The prisoner tensed, a new kind of illogical emotion settling into his face. Still fear, but of a different variety. The kind of a scared cornered animal, who no longer had teeth or claws to bear in defense of itself.

"Please," he whispered, his voice trembling from emotion and strained from his treatment. Shockwave noted the mild slur of his words. "Please let us go."

Shockwave tiled his head to the side, and the Autobot stared with wide, drug hazed eyes. It was likely that he wasn't even properly seeing Shockwave at that moment, though Shockwave didn't allow himself time to dwell on that idea. "Why should I?" he asked, in the way one does when they are not truly expecting a reply. "Why would I ever want to stop progress?"

The prisoner, the test subject, the Autobot who had no hope of rescue from the so remote facility that he would have died in the wilds before anyone had found him even if his escape had succeeded, continued to stare at him. And Shockwave, with all his lost emotions that hung like imprints of memories upon his Spark, could almost admire the tenacity he saw within his gaze.

No matter how hopeless it would all be, in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the big bang! I'm pretty pleased with this work, though I think I could have leaned a little more into body horror.


End file.
